Who started ISIS? What disaffected group? What former group of military folks from Iraq advise ISIS? How did that group become disaffected in Iraq?
Yes they would have captured cities unless we had actual fighting brigades on the ground. Trainers and advisers are not actual fighting brigades.
No one was advising that we leave actual fighting brigades on the ground. No one.
Wow...so you are saying you don't know that it was former military leaders under Saddam, Sunnis, who are helping ISIS now? Really?
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/0...with-saddam-loyalists-in-bid-to-take-baghdad/
“As an effective fighting force alone, ISIS would never have been able to hold such large territories, a Kurdish intelligence officer told FoxNews.com but with the help of Baathists [united under the banner of the Naqshbandi army], they have been able to keep the momentum going.”
Well, you are asking several different questions there, all of which have different or many answers. Read your two posts. You go from:
Who started ISIS? What disaffected group? What former group of military folks from Iraq advise ISIS? How did that group become disaffected in Iraq? All the way too in response to Gr8:
Wow...so you are saying you don't know that it was former military leaders under Saddam, Sunnis, who are helping ISIS now? Really?
There is a big difference between who started it and who is helping them, and how much the aforementioned Iraq military leaders are needed, .
Al-Baghdadi, the self proclaimed caliphate was thought to be a revolutionary Isamic professor(sunni) well before ISIS started and some even think before he invasion. No one knows for certain. If the USA would have known more-they likely sent him to Gitmo rather than release him. Much of ISIS is made of Al Qaeda and fighters that came from al-Nusra, and ME/North Africa region recruits. Large foreign influence. But pretty much all the main players had ties to Al-Qaeda, Afghanistan mujahideen, Chechen fighters, and Syrian rebels. Al-Qaeda(mostly Sunni), Afghanistan mujahideen were around long before the US invaded Iraq. Not like the USA invasion created those groups.
Sure former Baath party and Iraq military officers(sunnis) are helping ISIL. However, they also have Afghanistan mujaideen that were trained by and fought against the USA, fighters from the Georgian Army(mainly Chechens) that were trained by you guessed it, the USA and Russia, and Syrian rebels who have been trained by the USA, UK, and Russia(when they were part of Syrian Army).
So the answer in short to all your questions/claims would be nobody really knows for certain how it started, or would it have started. But as of now from reports on the ground it is pretty obvious that there is enough well trained military leadership with a vast background in training and philosophies to be good in battle without any former Iraqi officers.
And that is just the tip of the ice burg. Anyway, a big stretch to go from who started it to who is helping them. When you stated that Gr8 did not know it was former military leaders under Saddam Sunnis, who are helping ISIS, you seemed to imply that they needed that help to be successful or exist. Not the case. I mentioned all the foreign fighters and foreign training they had. I am sure they like the former Baath military officers-not needed though. It is a tough group, and SF guys on the ground there all say in every location they have their act together.
